


does he?

by questionabletendencies



Series: pine [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: ? - Freeform, Drabble, Fire, Implied Injuries, M/M, Underage Drinking, following the events of michael in the bathroom, i dont know what to tag this, not quite a drabble but also not quite a full work/piece, smoking is mentioned??, takes place during jake’s halloween party!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 12:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12606884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionabletendencies/pseuds/questionabletendencies
Summary: Michael Mell is the nicotine addict and Jake Dillinger is the smoke inflating his lungs.





	does he?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cranks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranks/gifts).



> okay HEY!!!! welcome to my section of the halloween author discord spooky fic exchange!! this is for one of my best friends in the world and i love them so much i rly hope they like it they’re such a good author PLS CHECK THEM OUT!! they deserve so much love!!
> 
> also does this follow the timeline of jake’s halloween party all that well? dare i say, no. HOWEVER, fuck the police.
> 
> also this is a continuation of my fic pine!! i’d highly recommend checking that fic out before reading this one but then again i can’t make ya do anything.
> 
> check me out on tumblr and I HOPE U ENJOY!!

_He does_ , Michael thinks, because he is the nicotine addict and Jake Dillinger is the smoke inflating his lungs.

They really are a match made in purgatory, such a perfect amount of bittersweet that the tequila Michael knows he’s tasting on Jake’s lips either makes Michael want to fall all the more in love with this boy, or vomit at his feet, but to differentiate would be an entire level of hell by itself. Jake pours all the smoke into Michael’s lungs, and Michael inhales hungrily through a kiss that he’s not quite sure just how he landed himself in.

Into Michael, Jake sings a song Michael’s sure he’s never heard before, and it’s far different from the last one that was sung to him. It doesn’t sound like pine needles hissing in a breeze Michael is sure he’ll be swept away in, or like plastic jump ropes skittering over asphalt with a childlike urgency. It doesn’t sound like Michael, scared stiff and unable to do anything about the cold and textured bark digging into his back, and now that he thinks about it, Michael isn’t terribly sure he’ll be able to hear such a pure song ever again.

This song is hazy. Michael can hear it only through the veil of a few beers, but it’s fast– fast, and hard, and lacking the innocence Michael had long associated with passing glances of Jake in the hall, and despite the fact that this whole entire night had been one horrible, shitty, awful thing after another, Michael almost thinks he could get used to this new tune. He can sing it at the top of his lungs, or he can hum it to himself as he strides down the halls of Middleborough, because through the smell of plastic bags filled with candy, or the sight of underaged girls wearing lingerie cleverly disguised as costumes, or _the sound of his fists against the porcelain sink as Jeremiah Heere closes the door on him for the last goddamn time–_

There’s a chorus. It’s quiet, and it’s warm like Jake’s breaths against his lips, and it moves with every hungry burst of energy Jake uses to push Michael further up the wall.

 _He does_. The words ring in his ears, and Michael can swear there’s a choir just behind the door Jake Dillinger has him pressed up against.

 _He does_. Michael can hear it in the murmurs of the crowd, and there are a million sweaty teenagers promising him this, speaking out from behind both their figurative and literal grotesque masks.

 _He does_. Michael can hear it in the inviting squeeze Jake gives his hip, can feel it rattle through his bones as Jake’s Party City wig brushes his hand on its way to the ground.

 _He does. Jake remembers_ , and maybe he always has, because when he pulls away to look at Michael, there’s something startlingly familiar about blue eyes that Michael can’t quite seem to place. An empty fifty cent toy container rattles hollowly in Michael’s chest, and maybe it’s because Michael already feels like an open nerve and his best friend has left him to die alone, but Michael has something to say, or he _has_ to say _something_.

Because maybe blue eyes haven’t changed since fifth grade, even if Michael can no longer really find any of the innocence left behind the haze of a shitty Halloween and alcohol.

“Jake,” Michael begins.

Halloween is his holiday, he promises himself, because it has to be if it’s meant this much for so long. And who’s to say this Halloween isn’t just as vital, that he can’t prosper from the end of a relationship, that there’s nothing to gain from Jake’s blue eyes and kiss bitten lips.

“I–” He tries, because every word is another gust of smoke out of his lungs, and for the first time in a long time it almost feels like Michael can breathe again. Like every breath is of oxygen, clear and unpolluted and heavenly in Michael’s chest.

Try as he might, Jenna Rolan is a big, black dog. When he catches sight of her, loitering behind Jake’s shoulder and urgently trying to catch Jake’s attention, he can hear the promise of tragedy in her voice, even if no one else can. What, exactly, she’s saying is hard to distinguish, but Michael’s heard his fate before. Seen the dog’s beady eyes, tucked away behind a phone screen, and just for a moment, Michael can feel the ghost of a Crystal Pepsi case weighing down one arm.

At one point, every sense had been dulled in preference of Jake. Desperately, Michael grapples to return to that, promising himself he’s _barely_ watching lips move. He’s hearing nothing beyond the lull of new music, and preparing to not care, too, but one moment Jake Dillinger is kissing him like he’s never been kissed before, and the next there are urgent hands unlatching Michael from Jake.

_As though Michael had anything to hold onto to begin with._

Michael leaves the party, his leisurely pace making him seem like a zombie against the mob of panicked teenagers around him, and when he needs her most, the Cruiser sits patiently out on the street, rumbling contentedly in the midst of Halloween chaos. She refuses to flinch like Michael does when a particularly worrisome burst of ash rolls out the window of a room Michael can almost promise recalling seeing Jake enter.

That night, if nothing else, Michael learns there’s nothing that will ruin a kiss quite like the wail of a firetruck.


End file.
